Show m wwfiSI mm m OSssSmmmSm occupation in the world many are still scattered in refugee camps from Syria to Tunisia and only two out ttf every five people who wants a job in Gaza otton shots can get one (the combined unemployment rate of That’s what Amal Kawar believes will West Bank and Gaza is about 43 percent) But if there is an eventual solution it starts somewhere struggle eventually end the between Jews and Arabs in the tiny strip of with shirts and a people who make them land they are both fighting for between the Her house is small and everything that can be Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea white is — the walls the chair she uts in a large The small thin Utah State University professor futon in the living room Prominently displayed by the door is a photo of herself with Yassir Arafat in gently describes her faith in the positive power of economics ”0006 the economic agreements are in his green fatigues and blade and white kutra coverplace and that’s already happening — Gaza citrus ing his head is now in the European Union — then things will But most striking is a painting of a stark white get better for Palestinians and that will improve building with three cavernous black windows set their circumstances” against a light blue sky It is her painting her first Kawar smiles slightly and her eyes light-u- p T am driven to paint I’m more of an impres“The best way to see this in practical terms is to sionist but 1 paint the landscapes to remind me of to ZCMI and see the shirts the labels that home" She’s taken to painting vivid images of her Siode in Israel and understand these are sewnsay childhood home in Acre On an easel in her study by Palestinian women in villages Those are the places sits an unfinished image of a dimly lit empty alley where the Israeli businessmen go because they looking into a sunlit square — the very idea of a know that’s where the cheap labor is” Levantine Arab dty "I want to express my emotions in color Words Making shirts in Khan Yunus and then selling them in the United Slates Canada or the member have value but they’re not what I’m good aL A states of the European Union is a start Kawar publisher may not take the book you've worked at for five years” Kawar said implies A tenuous connection to the outside world that can only lead to better things Kawar who has lived more rtf her life in Utah than she did in Acre the dty she was born in has “They know — the Israelis know — that their future lies in an economically integrated Middle "made her contribution” to the struggle with East Palestine and Israel will be separate political words however by writing Daughters of Palestine entities but they will be brought together by eco(State University of New York Press 1996) a slim nomics” le volume which takes another group of It's been a long time since that fateful June day the women leaders of the Palestinian nationalist in 1969 when Israeli Prime Minister Golds Meir movement and makes them known to the world arrogantly declared to the Sunday Times of LonT am an academic I was too far from the strugdon “It was not as though there was a Palestinian gle in Utah and even too far from the centers of people and we came and threw them out and took struggle in the US My interest in women and poltheir country away from them They did not exist” itics is that they are invisible even when they contribute years and years of sweat and life" Kiawar Although gospel for American supporters of Israel for nearly 20 years few would argue Meirh said "Let me tell you how invisible” Kawar continpoint today Americans are beginning to acquire what Karen Armstrong author rtf the New York ued "I went into the West Bank to interview there Times best seller A History of Cod calls Triple and then into the Palestinian Diaspora countries vision” We are beginning to see die land between Some of the women leaders outside didn't know the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea about the women leaders inside and vice versa” belongs not just to Jews and European Christians By the nationalist movement Kawar means the but to the Arabs — Muslim and Christian — as Palestinian Liberation Organization headed since well 1969 by Arafat a civil engineer and of And with that change of attitude the Palestinians Arabic for The Victory in 1937 The have moved from the nowhere they’ve more or less Palestinian movement was modeled on many other been since the Palestine War ended in 1949 a real Third World and liberation struggles of the 1960s although the two most influential people with real aspirations were the Front de Liberation Nationals of Algeria T have several stamps in my office at the uniand The National Liberation Front of South Vietversity issued by the Palestinian authority For the first tune mail can come from the West Bank and nam — whose armed forces were known to most Gaza wfebout using Israeli sumps Those symbols Americans as the ‘Vietcong of independence arc important Flags cuncacy But the FLO did more than just unsuccessfully stamps passports police" try and wage jungle-styl- e guerrilla war in the She paused and with a slight amount of etnbar-mindesert It built mass organizations on the ground aiiif " jiili " and after tile Israeli occupation of Gaza and Wrw-Ba- nk In a sense Palestinians are still nowhere They War in 1967 And those y during the continue to endure the longest running military organizations which dispensed health care charity By Charien H Fonthoratane SuDT WvICBr I fJ ld IV non-peop- er "Al-Fata- h” anti-coloni- al j er - Six-Da- children were in many instances and headed and run by women “I wanted to point out the kinds of activities that women tend to do when they engage in dvic affairs” Kawar said Many of the women she profiles especially in West Bank Gaza and Lebanon work in the PLO’s charitable and social service organizations "This is the same all over the world this social welfare work These are the kinds of activities that tend to get lost in history” She sees as a turning point in Palestinian history the intifada the uprising which began in 1987 with young Palestinian men and women throwing stones at Israeli soldiers It’s obvious from Kawar ’s book that Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza began fighting the Israeli occupation from the moment it began in 1967 "The Israeli doings were the same the arrests the shootings the bulldozing of houses What changed wu the massive eruption and that the Western media was there to capture it” she said Israel would eventually ban television cameras from West Bank and Gaza but by then many Americans saw Israel as "a state that’s capable of cruelty and terror” too Kawar describes an incident with Hanan Ashrawi the spokesperson for the Palestinians and by far the best known Palestinian woman in Tbnis in 199a “I went to Um Nasser’s bouse and at the time contact with the PLO was illegal for Israeli citizens or residents of territories Ashrawi wu there meeting with Arafat and so I decided to keep these pictures to myself because they could have caused trouble” Kawar said Ashrawi wu already acting the spokesperson of Palestinians in the West Bank when the intifada or uprising began in 1987 "I am amazed and interested in the role of the media Ashrawi is able to talk to the media in English she wu our first media star” Kawar said Kawar who wu when Acre an Arab dty for more than 1200 years became an Israeli city in 1948 described growing up Palestinian in Israel "being a stranger in your own land” "We were always tiptoeing and at the time of my generation education wu dosed and money for university wu scarce I taught elementary school after high school and that wu about all I would be allowed to do” Kawar said The opportunities have improved she said but standards for Israeli Arabs are still much lower than they are for Jewish Israelis "I think it would be accurate to say I wu the first Palestinian woman of the 1948 generation to get a PhD” she said Kawar sits back in her chair her tiny frame almom disappearing into the soft while cushion For an academic she claims she famY comfortable writing and will stick to the brush and the canvu for now' "This isn’t my language really and this book is my one effort I am spent" u u |